Gates, Buffett press wealthy to give more to charity

NEW YORK: The two richest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, called Wednesday on wealthy Americans to give at least half of their assets to charity, saying it can have "a huge effect" on health and welfare of others.

In a commentary written in Fortune magazine, Buffett writes that he and Gates are setting the example, and fulfilling a pledge made at a dinner of wealthy business leaders a year ago in New York.

Buffett said that he personally pledged that "more than 99 percent of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death."

The head of the Berkshire Hathaway investment group whose worth was estimated this year at 47 billion dollars, Buffett said his extraordinary wealth is at least partly due to luck.

"Fate's distribution of long straws is wildly capricious," he said.

"The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than one percent of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced.

"In contrast, that remaining 99 percent can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others."

Gates, the founder of Microsoft with an estimated personal worth of 53 billion dollars, told the magazine he hopes the super-rich view the 50 percent as minimum.

"This is about moving to a different realm," he said.

Among the billionaires who participated in last year's dinner were Oprah Winfrey, Eli and Edythe Broad, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Julian Robertson, John and Tashia Morgridge and Pete Peterson.

Fortune said that Bill and Melinda Gates hosted a dinner in London, and Bill Gates held meetings India and China with other wealthy individuals in an effort to induce those in other countries to follow the example.

It said among those committed to at least a 50 percent pledge are the Broads, capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and his wife Ann, HF Lenfest and his wife Marguerite, and the Morgridges.